Helpful Resources

Veterans' Benefits

How do I request veterans' funeral
benefits through Haywood Funeral Home?

Haywood Funeral Home will work with you to make sure your loved
one receives the burial benefits they earned through serving our country. To request funeral benefits, you will need to
provide our funeral director with a copy of your loved one's military discharge
papers, or DD 214/Separation Documents. This document is necessary to establish
proof of eligibility for burial benefits. If you do not already have a copy of
the discharge papers, you may go online and request them at http://www.archives.gov/veterans/military-service-records/

Who is considered a veteran?

For the purpose of receiving funeral benefits or
compensation for expenses associated with final arrangements, a “veteran" is
defined as one of the following:

Someone who is currently serving, or has served,
as a member of the Armed Forces (Army,
Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard)

What types of funeral benefits are
available to veterans?

Depending on the chosen final arrangements, specific funeral
benefits are administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), or by the
state in which the burial or inurnment takes place.

Government Benefits include:

Burial or Inurnment in a National Cemetery

Headstone or Marker

Burial Flag

Presidential Memorial Certificate

Scattering of Cremated Remains at Sea

Burial at Sea for Intact (Casketed) Remains

State Benefits include:

Burial or inurnment in a State Cemetery

What is a
burial allowance?

The VA or the state will pay some of the expenses
incurred in the burial of our country's veterans. Not every veteran's funeral
expense is covered, although most of the normal expenses you might incur will
be reimbursed.

VA
burial allowances are partial reimbursements of an eligible veteran's burial
and funeral costs. When
the cause of death is not service connected, the reimbursements are generally
described as two payments:
(1) a burial and funeral expense allowance, and (2) a plot or interment
allowance.

Veteran
receiving VA pension or VA disability pension at the time of death

Burial or
cremation allowance

Burial plot allowance
when not buried in a cemetery under US Government jurisdiction

Transportation Allowance for
Deceased Veterans:

Transportation
expenses reimbursed from place of death to funeral home (or crematory), if
death occurred at VA hospital

Transportation
expenses from funeral home (or crematory) to a cemetery under US
Government jurisdiction - if veteran died of service related injury, was
receiving a VA pension or disability, or died in a VA hospital

How
do you apply for these benefits and allowances?

You
can apply by filling out VA Form 21-530, Application for Burial Benefits. You can find this form online at http://www.va.gov/vaforms/

You
will need to attach a copy of the Veteran's military discharge document (DD 214
or equivalent), death certificate, funeral and burial bills. The bills should
show that you have paid them in full.

Haywood
Funeral Home will be glad to assist you in filing for veterans' benefits. Please contact one of our funeral directors
to let us know how we may help.